I've finally managed to kick off my exercise program again. I do very well maintaining the workouts (running four miles a day when it's warm). After moving to NYC and having to endure the arctic air during the winter, I'm finding it difficult to force myself outdoors to run. Let's keep in mind that I'm a teacher, and therefore don't have money to throw down the toilet at the gym.

Today I spent thirty minutes on my new Lateral Thigh Trainer, and then I did crunches, nice and slow (as opposed to "if I do these very fast it won't hurt as much and it will be over a lot quicker") so that I'm actually doing my body good, just like milk. Don't forget the stretching!

I'm tired, as you can probably tell by the disconcerted style this post is following. I think I might sleep under the mountain of clean laundry on my bed, instead of worrying about folding it all.

And today's purchases are:

Diddy Kong Racing

Castlevania


Yep. Back to the game.

So it's been a few days. But I brought my excuse from home as to why I was absent!

Friday - After working all day, I spent an endless amount of time on public transportation until 230am. Let me explain. I've been visiting NYC off and on for the last four years. Of course, no one really believed me all those times I skipped a few days of classes in college to come up here, simply because I lived in a small town that no one ever leaves. Traveling is unheard of there for the most part. It was time to prove my story.

My college roommate Krissy was visiting NYC with her husband, and we made plans to see each other Friday after work. I went to 53rd St. via the G-A-E trains and picked her up. Then we came back to Brooklyn for some dinner and the amazing Junior's cheesecake. We stopped off at my place for a while, and then I took her back to her hotel. The G train is the worst there is, so I ended up waiting for it for at least twenty minutes before it pulled into the station. By the time I got home I could barely figure out how to brush my teeth, much less write a post on the old blog.

Saturday - Saturday I spent recovering from the late night excursion the day before. I managed to walk downtown and do some window shopping at the Fulton Mall. Afterwards I was off to rent movies from the crappy neighborhood Blockbuster (where the movie I really wanted was out of stock, nothing was alphabetized, and there was no sense of "categories" to their organization). The rest of the night was spent either watching TV, or sleeping.

And here we are at Sunday. I have a few errands to run, (and a video game to buy) which will be told when I return.

I wasted two hours of my life tonight filing my taxes. This after a little girl had a seizure in my class this morning, and the heat was turned on, but several hours late.

But it's ok.. cause my mom sent me a blue fuzzy squishy bear.. and I love him, and my mom. Thanks mom!

Today started out well. Work ended well, with tax refund in hand I bounded off to the grocery store, and then home. My arrival home was wonderful too, for the exercise machine I ordered was delivered.

Then disaster hit. I realized that the machine I got, was indeed from the company I cancelled the order from yesterday. If you read yesterday's post, you'll know that after canceling the first order, I made another purchase from a different company for the same item. Of course I call up Walmart, and they tell me the item has already shipped, so I'll have wait until it shows up, refuse the package from UPS, and then they'll re-credited my plastic minus the cost of shipping.

Here's the kicker. Company 2 has yet to charge me for said cancelled order. I'd like to call and ask them what their malfunction is at the current time, but I think I'll wait and see what happens.

In other news: The furnace in my building is broken, and thus we have had no heat all day. It apparently won't be fixed until late tomorrow evening (because our landlords are slumlords) which means I'll have to freeze. Thank God I have an electric blanket else I'd be frozen toast, much like those neat little frozen french toast breakfast meals you can purchase in your grocer's freezer.

In other news. Walmart is the best store on the face of the Earth. They can ship an order to me in 2 days, when this other place couldn't get me the same order in 5 weeks time. (This was after ordering the item that claimed to be in stock, receiving an email that said it was out of stock and wouldn't be shipped for three weeks... then calling to find out that it would be another two weeks after the initial three weeks, and who knows when that saga would have ended). Needless to say folks, stick to Walmart. They know their stuff.

Today I became a grad student. Yes. I'm attending a college in Maine called St. Joseph's, and apparently it's only a two hour drive from Zann. Of course, I'm living in New York while entertaining this little project. The college has a correspondence program, perfect for those of us who can't afford to actually GO to a college everyday, and spend assloads of money.

The best part is that you can begin a class at any time during the year, and that it's independent study, which means that you can do the work at your own pace. I always ran into this frustration throughout my schooling career. Being forced to work at the teacher's tempo was not my forte. What if I want to work at a brisk Allegro, as opposed to a drawn out Largo?

Let's see if I can make it into the Gunniess Book of World Records before the year is over.

Have some links!

The neighborhood watchdog. Grrrrrr.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand. Don't ever say I didn't teach you anything.

Popeye was first introduced to society on January 17, 1929. He appeared in a guest spot in the Thimble Theatre, a comic strip created by Elzie Segar for the New York Evening Journal which was based on Olive Oyl's family.

His first big screen debut was in 1933 when he appeared in an episode of a Betty Boop cartoon called "Popeye the Sailor".

By 1938, Popeye may very well have been more popular than Mickey Mouse throughout America.

When Popeye was really in a bind, he would down a can of spinach. This of course would give him super-human strength to take on his enemies.

Popeye had a supernatural creature in his world known as Eugene the Jeep. Eugene was named before the vehicle even existed. The jeep had the ability to disappear and reappear in another place.

Popeye was piped into American homes with his own cartoon show in the 1960s, after the invention of the television.

Robin Williams portrayed Popeye while Shelley Duvall was Olive Oyl in his very own movie in 1980.

After the Popeye comic strip started in 1931, spinach consumption went up by 33% in the U.S.

An anchor is tattooed on Popeye's arm.

Being the longest running cartoon series, Popeye first aired on television in 1956. Between 1933 and 1957, 'Popeye the Sailor Man' was made as 233 one-reelers and a single two-reeler. Between 1960 and 1962 there followed a further 220 'Popeye' cartoons (for television) and then 192 cartoons 'All New Popeye' between 1978 and 1983.

This weekend, the Empire State Building helps America celebrate Popeye. If you look closely, you might see old Popeye scaling the King Kong building, although he is hidden well by the spinach green lights!

Problems problems everywhere.. no one willing to work to find a solution.

In other matters, I had an interesting dream last night. I have no idea what it meant, but I will write what I can remember here, possibly you can help me figure it out.

In the dream I was playing some sort of Halo style video game with two of my high school friends that I haven't seen in ages. Both are trumpet players, and still living in Florida. At any rate, we somehow became part of the game, and before I knew it we were tromping through knee length grass towards a canoe. We finally reached the boat and sat down on it, but it seemed more like a flat piece of wood than anything that would float. Next, one of my friends turned to me, and began placing war paint on my face. He looked at it not seeming to be quite pleased with his work, but we continued on our mission nonetheless. We began floating down this swampy river, with grass and lord only knows what drifting by on either side. I remember several instances where I could feel the bottom of the stream dragging against us, feeling my hands in the water, touching the plantlife in the surrounding area. Eventually we came to a place where we were to fight what I'm assuming were supposed to be Indians, but I've no idea honestly. I woke up shortly there after. No fighting to be seen.

I can tell you it was fun to see those friends again. May 1998 at graduation was the last we knew of each other, although we went to school together for nearly twelve years. It's fun that people don't age in dreams. How they have the same appearance they did the last you saw them, even if years have passed. I suppose in our dreams time doesn't pass quite the same is it does in reality. It's a good thing too. I find comfort in seeing old friends when I'm so far from home.

All right folks. I've had enough for one night. This is good as it's going to get for now. Let me know if you see anything really screwy, else give me a few days to work out the kinks.

Please hold while I adjust your television set.

Want to see what I had to put up with today? All you have to do is look at the list below. If you don't want to know, then don't look, meany!

• Wake up exhausted from not enough sleep the last several days and make it to work on time


• Arrive at work to find out that I'll be short-handed (teacher-wise) in my classroom for the second day in a row (not that it really matters, the assistants don't do anything when they're there at any rate.)


• Feed the children, feed the fish, smell the fish water, gag, clean the fish tank


• Teach the children, take the children to the gym, feed and clean up after the children again


• Fix the copy machine, again.


• Grade homework, fill folders with freshly copied homework, do various other paperwork that no one else seems to be able to figure out how to do.


• Wake children, put away all of their beds, tie all of their shoes (that's 38 shoe laces), feed them again, clean up after them again


• Teach children another lesson, dance around the room acting the fool with the children for afternoon play, help children work on their afternoon project


• Make a trip to the grocery store for milk, cereal, basic necessities (Soda) etc


• Rush home


• Put away all groceries


• Clean entire kitchen, bedroom, bathroom (and the kitchen is a shared duty with my other 5 roommates)


• Be surprised by mouse living in closet, remember I must remind landlord to kill mouse


• Take out all recycling and garbage, wonder what is creating funky smell in kitchen, open old fridge door and discover a fridge full of old molded, fermenting, bubbling food and condiments, gag again.


• Clean out old fridge, spray lots of air freshener, light incense, get burned by incense (way to go grace), shout obscenity when being burned, take out nasty garbage from nasty fridge


• Sweep and mop apartment, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and hall


• Take shower and clean myself

Is it Friday yet?

Someone buy this for me please? It's only $89,000. I'm normally a blue type of girl, but for some reason I like the orange pearl better. Now, if someone would only teach me how to drive.

I learn a little more each day, and today I learned that I'm not sure spending two hours putting in that weather tracker was worth the time and effort. But if only one of you enjoys knowing what the weather's like here in Brooklyn, then I will be satisfied. Enjoy :-)

I've added something more for you to look at on the site. It's a weather tracker for Brooklyn. Thanks to Zann for helping me find the program. She's the best.

Folks, can I add here that for the first time since I started this blog (I think) I managed to post everyday for the week. I'm on a roll.

"On the education front, where Mr. Bloomberg has long hoped to make his biggest impact as mayor, he said yesterday that his administration would put "an end to the discredited practice of social promotion," beginning with the third grade, and that the city planned to increase art and music education in the schools. " - NYTimes - Mayor Bloomberg

That's right Mr. Mayor. Make it easier for me to find a job teaching the subject I'm certified under. But wasn't it just last year that they claimed they were cutting the programs? Make. Up. Your. Minds.

18 degrees my ass. My blanket and I aren't going out that front door!

Seeing as how I bought my new camera at Christmas, this blog has recently erupted into a place to display the pictures I've been snapping. I thought it might be fun for those I know to see where I work each day. The first time I got a break to take a picture was when the kids were sleeping... you can't see all of them in the pic. It was a full day, and some of them had to sleep in the hall. Just kidding. No, that's not me at the table in the pic, it's my current teachers assistant, asleep at the wheel. I had 20 students today. 20 out of 21 is above average for my classroom. Naptime is the only moment of the day where I can complete non-child related tasks. Today I spent the time ripping down all of the Christmas decorations that were still up. Nothing gets done when I'm on vacation. Sigh.

I exchanged the splinter for less nail and a big hole today at the doctors.

The saga continues.

Now that I've figured out how to use my new camera software, I swear I won't subject you to anymore huge photo file loads... My apologies. Check out the sidebar :-)

What do I see when I look out my bedroom window? Ask no more. Not that you ever did.

Happy New Year everyone! May your year be full of productivity, success, and joyous surprises. I, like many sane New York residents, spent New Years Eve safely locked in my apartment. Keep me away from Time Square, thank you very much.

Everyone remember to write 2004 on your checks!